The Big Three

A couple years after university I got myself into some debt. This weighed heavily on me but I had some other overwhelming concerns and didn't really have a goal in life apart from a career goal, so I didn't work at remedying my debt. Throughout university, I was on such a fixed income that I never spent anything extra, never bought anything, and I really didn't give it any thought. It didn't bother me because I didn't need anything and wasn't used to income so I was in no trouble. But then I got my first good job, and I was suddenly making more than the exact amount I needed to pay my rent and bills. It still didn't occur to me to spend money on anything so it just sat in my bank account. I also didn't have a lot of friends, not the kind that I would do trips with, so my lifestyle was pretty cheap.

Then one day I was making a little moremoney and I was dating a guy, and we were going to go camping with some friends. It occurred to me I wasn't really prepared because I didn't own a rain jacket. We had just been camping overnight and I had spent the weekend in a garbage bag that a friend fashioned into a rainsuit. I realized I needed a rain jacket and then ... !bing! I realized I had the means to buy myself a rain jacket and some other small camping supplies. Maybe that's silly to some people but I had never just gone out and bought myself things before, especially not a $250 jacket from Mountain Equipment Co-op (which I still have by the way).

It may have been a necessary purchase, but it was also the beginning of the end. It was the exact moment when I realized my money would buy me things, lots of things, and hey that line of credit and credit cards doesn't make me feel guilty, how about that. I have been in debt ever since. I don't remember how quickly it happened. But I wasn't keeping track of expenses then, not until I started to reach my credit limit in general.

This posting isn't actually about debt, it just provides some context to the guilt and the void I have lived with for the past 8 years. It's not just about the debt. It's about the Big Three. Those three big things that were missing from my life that I have always wished and hoped would magically resolve themselves. Debt was the first one, I wished and hoped I would get better with money. I'm happy to say that it's solved. I finally got serious about wanting a house and I am making it happen. I have saved and almost have my down payment ready. And it hasn't been a struggle even once, I have not made mistakes. I have been smart and been able to still participate in activities and see friends, but saved quite a bit at the same time. It remains to be seen if this is a long term change but I am a changed woman and no longer desire things and go out and just buy them. I rarely answer yes when I ask myself "do I want this more than I want a house?" Yes, I must have wanted the iPhone more than a house. Har.

The second thing has been a relationship. It sounds too cheesy to say the next thing that was missing was love, but it's true. It would embarrass me to go into too much detail about how lonely I was for so long but that too has solved itself. I never ever thought the perfect person was out there for me. Someone who literally met every single wish I had in a partner, and yet could still surprise me and be so much more than I hoped. But I lucked out.

The third thing weighs the most heavily on my mind. Even though the first two problems really did get solved, this third one feels insurmountable sometimes. It's my weight and health. I'm not unhealthy per se, I mean I don't have chronic problems and I do get a lot of exercise. But I am overweight and just can't seem to get back on track. I don't know if it's worse or better that I DID get on track in my early 20s and saw just how possible it was. It even felt easy. But now, here I am again, overweight and guilty all the time about it. But that doesn't seem to be enough to get me back on the wagon for longer than a day or a week or a month here and there. Part of the goal was to get consistent exercise and since January 2008 I have been doing that. It may not be a cardio frenzy up in here but I play a lot of sports, I swim consistently, and I do things more than I ever used to. I finally found the right activities for me. But I don't eat properly and my activities aren't a high enough intensity to make up for it so here I am. I really have the best life I could imagine, I'm happy all the time but... the weight issue is always always on my mind, the constant guilt weighs me down, and in the wrong crowd I can turn terribly self-deprecating. But then I think... I never thought the first two would happen but they did. So I still hold out hope for my third obstacle. It's been getting worse this last month though, and I'm not really sure where it's headed. I'm hoping it's headed for a change because of how bad I feel all the time, but I have always hoped that. It's hard to say what 2009 will be like for me for this 3d burden of mine.